More than 90,000 hectares of koala habitat in Queensland was cleared in a single year, according to new analysis that finds most of that clearing occurred for beef production.
The analysis, produced by environmental organisation The Wilderness Society (TWS), examined the Queensland government’s most recent Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (Slats), which showed landholders cleared 680,688 hectares of woody vegetation in 2018-19.
It calculates that 92,718 hectares of that clearing was in known or likely koala habitats, roughly equivalent to bulldozing two thirds of the Brisbane local government area, the organisation said.
The vast majority of the clearing – 73,825ha or 80% – was for beef production.
Anita Cosgrove, the acting Queensland campaign manager for TWS, said most of the habitat destruction was not referred for approval under Australia’s national environmental laws.
“[As] weak as existing deforestation and species protection laws may be, what is actually most alarming is when they simply aren’t applied at all,” she said.
“Governments must take the action needed to effectively address species declines, and it’s also well and truly time to take a good, hard look at the industry most responsible for the damage.
“In Queensland, that is the beef industry.”
The analysis was produced by examining the Slats data and publicly available data from the federal government on the habitats of listed threatened species.
It follows the recent upgrading of the koala’s conservation status to endangered by the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, who has also promised to adopt a national recovery plan for the species.
TWS has previously called for improved approaches from the beef industry and from companies that buy and sell beef products.
In 2018, it produced a report on clearing in Great Barrier Reef catchments that argued industries could expose themselves to financial risk in future as a result of deforestation.
That same year, land-clearing laws were tightened in Queensland, after they were eased under the previous Newman government.
The government has since introduced higher-resolution technology to capture the amount of clearing, meaning Slats data from 2018-19 cannot be directly compared with data from previous years.
Organisations such as WWF Australia have said the continued high rates of clearing in the state suggest the changes to the law have failed to curb habitat destruction and that the old monitoring methods had likely resulted in an under-reporting of clearing in the years before 2018-19.
Cosgrove said both the federal and state governments needed to take stronger action to protect habitat for species at risk of extinction.
This included adopting the national environmental standards recommended by the former competition watchdog head Graeme Samuel in the once-in-a-decade review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
But she said industry could also take steps by ensuring that the beef products in their supply chains were sustainable and deforestation-free.
“Only a minority of producers are responsible for the large rates of deforestation,” she said.
“The big retailers of beef need to support the majority of producers that are already doing the right thing.”
Mark Davie, a Queensland-based farmer and the chair of the steering committee for the Australian Beef Sustainability Framework, said clearing figures were higher since the change in monitoring methods and the methods did not capture the quality of what was being cleared.
Davie said the clearing included invasive species such as lantana and rubber vine, and farmers did not want to put more pressure on animals such as the koala.
“No one wants to make koalas more endangered,” he said.
Davie said there had been a resurgence in on-farm projects to manage biodiversity but the industry was still looking for better incentives that enabled farmers to balance running their operations and protecting the landscape.
“I get the intention of The Wilderness Society and I’d love us to come together and get a solution that isn’t a solution from a satellite, it’s a solution on the ground,” he said.
